(for local cultural understanding)

Every big city in Latin America has slums at its edges and
in certain of its corners. Brazil has more people than the US and three times
the population of the next largest Latin American country. Why wouldn’t there
be three films dealing with Brazilian favelas in a Santa Barbara festival?

Of those films, 5 x favela – agora por nós mesmos (the 'x' is read as 'vezes', Portuguese for 'times'), is
actually five short films, which makes it the best bet of the three Brazilian slum movies: if one of the five sucks,
fuck it, there’s four more that might be good! In fact, all five of these are
good. The monoglot who presented the film said that the third one was actually
his favorite, but why would anyone care what he thinks?

The subjects of this collection are a drug dealing law
student, a child chicken thief, a cop/gangster/chick
trio, kite enthusiasts on opposing sides of the river, and an electric company
man who pulls emergency slum duty on Christmas. Taken as a whole, 5 x favela is
an accurate treatment of Latin America slum life. Yes, that’s where the worst
drug dealers are. Yes, everybody knows somebody who’s involved in something
illegal. Yes, residents distrust the authorities for good reason. But most
people are just trying to live normal lives.

Go see 5 x favela Monday, 1/31, 10pm at the Metro or
Wednesday, 2/2, 7:40pm at the Lobero.